National Bread Week

16th - 22nd April 2013 is National Bread Week in the UK

Bread in one form or another, is consumed the
world over, so eating it during National Bread week is something most of us
will do without even thinking about it.

Recipes4us' *Recommendations*Buy fromAmazon

When was Bread first made?

Whilst no-one is absolutely sure as to when the first
bread was made, man has been eating, albeit a crude form of flatbread, since
10,000 BC. Certainly the ancient Egyptians were making leavened (raised) bread
with yeast by 3000BC and it is thought that the workers who built the pyramids
were paid in bread. Not surprising that it has earned the title “staff of life”.
Indeed, for many throughout the ages, bread has been a staple of their diet and
it was so important, that laws concerning bread have existed for hundreds of
years.

Types of Bread

Listing the types of bread available and eaten throughout the world is almost
impossible especially when you consider that just in the UK we have well over
200 varieties of bread readily available to most of us. As a compromises, here’s
a much shorter, but hopefully just as interesting summary.

Whilst breads are made from different types of flour such as white, wholemeal,
corn etc., they are more easily divided into two main categories namely
high/medium risers and flatbreads.

These can be further broken down into flour and grain types e.g. wholemeal,
soft-grain, wholegrain, corn, rye and buckwheat. There’s also Granary bread which
is a brown bread made from special Granary® flour (a trademark of the Hovis
brand), which includes kibbled and whole grains and malt breads which are made
from a special ingredient mix .

Speciality Breads

In the UK, speciality breads such as Focaccia, ciabatta, paratha, pitta and naan
are one of the fastest growing sectors with garlic bread accounting for over a
third of this sector. Other speciality breads which have gained favour in
the UK include Panini, brioche, chapatti, tortillas, baguettes and bagels.

Nutritional value of Bread

In the past 20 years, there has been a considerable shift from white bread to brown or wholemeal,
mainly due to the health benefits associated with the latter. Bread is an
excellent source of carbohydrates, protein B vitamins and fibre and believe it
or not, white bread is a reasonable source of calcium.

We have lots of
bread recipes on the site, but to get you in the mood for
National Bread week, below is a
recipe for one of the above-mentioned speciality breads.